Out of the Comfort Zone

Sorry for the long delay; our computer has been down for almost a week. We went to an Internet cafe finally today but that's next thing to a lesson in futility or at least frustration. Anyway, I'll back up a few days to last Thursday/Friday. Easter was an exciting celebration with thousands of other Christians in a football stadium, all worshipping together. Following that was a kind of evangelistic crusade which had been advertised for weeks prior. The 'new boys' (ages 10-12) invited us to go with them to this crusade. They shared that people were being healed - the blind receiving sight, lame walking, etc. So we all piled into one of those 3-wheeled 'taxis' and off we went to this big stadium. The music had already started; people had filled the main grounds and the bleachers were slowly filling up. The boys led us up to the top where we had a good view. Well, it was a good old Pentecostal preacher with his good old Pentecostal style of preaching. I'm not sure exactly how Scriptural 'claiming your miracle' is but it was hard not to catch the boys' excitement. Their faith was just like Jesus praised - simple and child-like. Well, we listened to the 'sermon' and the dynamic Nepali translator. I even found it somewhat amusing but had to repent of my cynicism to God. Well, the boys wanted to go down onto the field as they were calling people to come forward for healing prayer. You wouldn't believe the hundreds of people streaming up to the front. The healing evangelist was trying to organize these people so he could pray for them all. Well, we followed the boys down and, after observing for awhile, started to make our way out. Yeah, right.

Picture 4 white foreign women walking down the field past l-o-n-g lines of Nepalis waiting to be prayed for, accompanied by a few young Nepali boys. We had made it halfway when a woman approached Sheri. "Would you pray for me?" Okay, her companion explained that she had a heart problem. What to do? So Sheri & I (Bonnie) laid our hands on her and prayed. Okay, we did our little part; now let's go home. Yeah, right. We turned around and more people were gathered. Karina had a family of 3 (father, mother, baby) who asked her to pray for them. Alana got waylaid by someone else while Sheri & I found a next person waiting their turn. I looked around and almost wanted to laugh. What were we doing? We're not the 'trained prayer team'. We don't have any badges on (like all the volunteers). I know what you're going to say, Mitch - what you tried teaching us all that first year in Ministry Training back in 95/96. John Wimber said we all got to 'do the stuff'. Yeah, but we're the foreigners here. Why are they all surrounding us expecting US to pray for them? It was quite funny, actually. I really wanted to laugh. We were seriously getting surrounded. And we were just trying to make our way out of the stadium. Finally this one dumb woman (I mean that literally) approached us for prayer. Sheri & I tried tackling it but weren't getting anywhere so I thought we should take her to the 'expert' (after all, he was the 'healing evangelist'). While we took her to the front, Alana got pulled into a group casting a demon out of a woman. I got waylaid by another woman who was suffering what sounded like depression. So we all got into our battle modes. The end finally came when a shout came from the group (Sheri even heard a scream up in the bleachers, which were by now empty). The demon had been cast out. Praise the Lord! We went home (finally; it was already dark) rejoicing but amazed at what had just transpired - except the dumb woman. Her name was Bawani and I pray the Lord gave her back her speech. Truly the Lord has a sense of humour. He took us right out of our comfort zone and into the middle of the action contrary to all our intentions.

As if that weren't enough, the next day (Friday) I opened my big mouth (which is what usually gets me into trouble) to Noel, who in turn spoke to Pastor Shem, who then asked to speak to me. I thought he wanted to discuss something serious. Instead he said, "Would you speak at church tomorrow?" Yeah, right - speak at church. Ha! Ha! Prepare a sermon in one day. I am REALLY getting pushed out of my comfort zone. Not only that but I have to get the notes ready to be translated. Prepare a 20-minute sermon? In front of a church? I know Pastor Nathan reminded us that we have far more knowledge of the Scripture than they do here, even though they have more experience in praying for people to be healed. I just never expected to preach a sermon. But I also never expected to get waylaid by so many people at a healing crusade. But the girls got in some practice. Sheri got bold! Alana saw a demon cast out! Rabin (one of the 'new boys') really preached it and prayed in fervor for this lady. It was exciting & fun! Okay, God - we're ready (I think) to get stretched and thrown into battle.

This Friday we go to the riverbed ...